Claude Opus 5 (Medium) vs GLM-5.3 (Low)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Medium) by Anthropic or GLM-5.3 (Low) by Z AI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Medium) scores 10.5 points higher (44.8 vs 34.3) but costs 2.7× as much to run the benchmark ($2732 vs $1013; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Claude Opus 5 (Medium) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise GLM-5.3 (Low).
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Medium) | GLM-5.3 (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.8 | 34.3 | −23.4% GLM-5.3 (Low) is 23.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,731.91 | $1,012.50 | −62.9% GLM-5.3 (Low) is 62.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 13.14s | 31.21s | +137.5% GLM-5.3 (Low) is 137.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $1.40 / $4.40 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
GLM-5.3 (Low) vs Claude Opus 5 (Medium): 23.4% less intelligence, 62.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 137.5% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- GLM-5.3 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Claude Opus 5 (Medium)GLM-5.3 (Low)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-medium/glm-5-3-low · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-medium/glm-5-3-low?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill